Opening Day Address 2004-05

President Jean Floten

September 21, 2004

It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome you to the beginning of the 2004-2005 academic year at Bellevue Community College. Soon, we will welcome the new class of students that will walk across our courtyard filled with hope and trepidation, bringing new energy and new challenges to the faculty and staff of this great college. And each year—the evidence seems to mount incrementally—each year, they are yet another year younger than we are!

For those of us who have lived our whole lives in step with the rhythms of academia, September days are rich with reminiscence, introspection, and metaphors. September to us is the beginning of everything. The first hint of autumn in cool September mornings always triggers for me hope, dreams, and aspirations as I imagine the faces of those who will come to us to start new lives.

It's odd isn't it that at a time when the earth is slowing down, getting ready to rest and rejuvenate over the winter, we educators experience our highest flow of energy and enthusiasm. Autumn is our time of rebirth and growth. I am always thrilled to feel the vitality that begins each fall quarter. We greet friends and reconnect with colleagues in our corridors, offices, and walkways. We ready ourselves once again to engage with students and be invigorated with a renewed sense of purpose for the important work we do.

Next week our college will be filled with students, crossing walkways and grassy knolls where trees display rich tones of burgundy and gold. We await them and hope to instill the excitement for learning that is our most fundamental common bond.

Autumns, too, bring opening day, a time for us to gather and bring focus to the year that lies ahead while affirming our united purpose as a learning community.

In this opening day I want to honor our collective accomplishments and excellence as teachers, administrators and staff members, each serving our community with particular talent and dedication. Together, we bring abundant intelligence, ardor for learning and essential energy needed to meet new aspirations.

One of our rich traditions at the start of the academic year is welcoming new employees. Each of us has the sense just how large our college has become as we look around and see new faces mixed in with those of old friends. We warmly welcome those of you who are new into the BCC family. Since this time last year, we have 70 new employees bringing fresh ideas and energy. Here is a list of their names and areas in which they work. Would you please stand and be recognized?

I also want to introduce Sandy Wall, Deputy Director of the SBCTC, who will be with us through the end of December in a special job-share with me. She has already earned her strips by helping us petition for emergency funding for the flood we had in August and streamlining our strategic plan document. Let's welcome Sandy.

We are delighted to have you with us and wish you a fulfilling and enjoyable career at BCC. I hope everyone here will come to the new-employees reception this Thursday, September 23 at 3:30 p.m. in the Garden Room, C130, for a more personal opportunity to welcome our newest employees to BCC. Let's give all these new friends a round of applause.

You might also be expecting to greet our third international scholar-in-residence today, Dr. Eduardo R. Gomes, a political scientist from Rio de Janeiro , Brazil . Eduardo will join us in January, but I wanted to tell you a little bit about him. Eduardo holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, near Rio, where he is also chairman of the graduate program of political science. He will teach Latin American history with an emphasis on comparative governments, political and economic development.

We are thrilled to have another distinguished scholar in residence to help us and our students look at the world from another perspective and broaden our horizons in new ways, and I know we will look forward to his joining us in January. Dorjee and Stella, in initiating this program, have so forcefully demonstrated the benefits for all of us and for our students.

PAUSE

I know right now many of you are thinking about preparing for your classes, pulling together your final syllabi, getting rosters ready for classes, anticipating the multitude of students who will be here in less than a week, and probably only checking in occasionally to hear what I have to say. I am asking you to set aside all those thoughts for a few minutes and listen for just a little bit.

Today, I want to share some reflections about our purpose here. Of course, we all know why we are here— this is our job, right? We are here to do our work and make a livelihood. Now, if that was really true, and if anyone in this room actually believed that, I think this room would be empty! If we were motivated by just a paycheck we would all be working somewhere else for much more than we will ever earn in higher education. But that is not really why we remain in education. We are here because we truly believe in the importance of education and the critical work that we do to improve society. Amid all the change which now and in the future affects us, there is one assumption to which we can all hold fast: education is and will continue to be the primary means by which human beings can shape their best selves and improve the conditions of their lives. And we are committed to providing the support for those changes.

We have experienced the ability to change lives and make a difference in the world—often simply through expressing our belief in our students and offering them encouragement. The power of the connection between teacher and student is one of the truly transformative experiences in our society. Our job is to provide those students who sit in our classrooms and stand in front of our desks every day the tools to create for themselves a world of their choosing and not a world confined by the circumstance of their environment. We are “builders of civilization” and we know that what our students take away from here will advance humanity. The building bricks of knowledge and understanding are cornerstones that strengthen our communities; tools to see the world in new ways and find solutions to tremendous problems; and the very foundations for progress.

These are the highest gifts we can give, and it is my belief that we get back so much more than we give. We all know this to be true, but sometimes we lose sight of our real purpose as we listen to yet one more student's excuse about why he wasn't prepared to deliver his paper or think about one more committee meeting that we have to attend. We get lost in the day-to-day exigencies that comprise our lives. Well, this year I want to ask you to stop for a minute when you are slipping into that daily malaise and challenge yourself to see things in a new light. Shake yourself up, change your routine, and remember our fundamental purpose for being here.

Earlier this summer president's staff held a retreat to do some more work on the strategic plan. We were all getting tired and cranky, and then we played a little game that challenged us to take time out for a minute and see ourselves in a new way. It was fun but it also made a point. I want to share it with you, today. If you recognize the location of the slide I will show you, call it out. It is an everyday sight at our college.

Slides -- Sculpture outside NWCET, Sculpture by the Theater , The volcano sculpture outside the R building, Sculpture in the ELFCC, Donor wall in NWCET

This was really an extraordinary look at our college, wasn't it? How did you do? Amazing how we can pass items every day and really not see them. Sometimes there are things around us that we see every day that we don't truly recognize at all. George Kneller, a former professor in the philosophy of education program at UCLA, said, “To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” These words echo the poet Wordsworth's statement of his poetics, a little more than 200 years ago, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads , that our capacity for romance in our lives lies in our ability to recognize the extraordinary within the ordinary and the magic within the seemingly routine.

One of the features of BCC about which I am the most proud is our ability to constantly reinvent ourselves and then to use that energy to replenish those parts of the college we value the most. Our individual and collective abilities to adapt to rapid change and create something new and more effective has kept BCC at the forefront of the educational process and as a target for jealous respect among our colleagues in the state. I value these qualities in our college and in each and every one of you. They help us stay agile and excited about the important work we do at BCC.

The same applies to this year. Let's look at our work in a new way to find opportunities to challenge ourselves and others, to replenish and renew. We ask our students to do this every day. I, for one, want to look back at the end of this year and say, “I am tired, but it is a ‘good tired’”.  We had many accomplishments that made a huge difference in someone's life. Like many of you, I have gotten to that point in my career that I realize that if I don't do what I can right now, I may not have many more chances. I want to look back on these years filled with pride with what we were able to do together. So far, my most esteemed colleagues, you have certainly not disappointed me!”

But, as I contemplate this year, I see some dark clouds. We are bursting at the seams, trying to make room for the thousands of students who are coming to us from high schools and from jobs that they are no longer suited for. We tell these students, “We are an open door institution.” Yet the reality is that our ever decreasing budget and constraints placed on our ability to serve our populations is narrowing their door of opportunity and threatening to shut it tight.

Washington trails the nation in the number of students who obtain baccalaureate degrees—we are 43 rd among 50! And yet, BCC's and other community colleges' qualified transfer students, who want four-year degrees, are piled high in deferred admission status at the University of Washington and at other state universities. Simply stated, there are not enough funded seats at the upper division level within Washington’s public universities to accommodate our qualified students.

Many students and potential students are identifying that higher education is not a real system in our state— they are not able to transfer—and are opting to start their education elsewhere—many in other states. This is a significant brain drain of our youth. Studies show most will never return to live and work in Washington. This is very troubling.

Right now, as increasing numbers of the baby boom echo generation complete high school and look to college, Washington will fall even further behind in providing higher education for its own sons and daughters, without legislative intervention. What's more, as our state's economy continues to struggle, many adults need retraining to find or keep jobs. Washington needs to invest in the futures and livelihoods of its productive citizens.

NPR yesterday ran a story about yet another group of underserved adults, those with low literacy. NPR estimated this population to comprise an astonishing 43 percent of adults in America. These are people who have trouble reading and filling out even basic forms, like job applications. Funded enrollments are not keeping pace with the demands of this population, either. Yet, demography shows us that if America is to continue to be competitive, we must leave no adult behind.

Over 31,000 NEW seats are needed in Washington’s community and technical colleges alone in the next few years to accommodate the demand that population growth, the baby boom echo workforce and literacy needs!

We need to confront these problems of insufficient funded enrollment now by increasing the enrollment capacity of our state's colleges and universities, which means adding more seats in classrooms and maintaining quality standards for our students. Generations before us have met comparable—or even greater challenges -- and we must do the same.

As educational leaders, we must keep the spotlight and focus on this crucial state responsibility. We must inform our public that we have a crisis of access in higher education; there is no longer a guarantee that Washington state's citizens will have space in Washington’s public institutions of higher learning. We must urge lawmakers to find solutions and emphasize that investment in education is the single most important investment our society needs to make. We can not say this often enough or in enough venues. We need to obtain "critical mass" among the thinking, speaking, voting public, if it is to be solved.

This year, I am making a special plea to each of you to step beyond classrooms and the “hallowed halls” of BCC and join me in becoming an outspoken advocate for higher education. I believe it is up to us to take hold of Washington’s future. We must help the legislators and citizens of this state understand that, without new funding for education, we will not be able to support the kind of society we have come to value. Who knows about the importance of higher education better than we do? Who can speak more intelligently and with better examples than we about how education has the ability to transform lives and build societies? If we care about these things, if we truly are here because we believe in our higher calling as educators, then we must speak out about their importance.

I urge all of us to expand the circle of awareness, by informing friends, neighbors, communities, professional groups and other organizations in which we belong, that higher education in Washington state is in crisis; that enrollment capacity issues must be addressed for the very future of our citizens and the welfare of our state. We can not let another legislative session adjourn without solutions. We must keep pressure on the legislature to fund more higher education enrollment capacity -- the stakes and consequences are far too high to do otherwise. If each of us here makes a commitment to expand the circle of awareness, we can make a difference; this is the heart of the political process.

Please make a personal commitment today to this important work. There is no planned enrollment or facilities capacity to meet the demand of high school students currently in the pipeline. Workforce and literacy needs continue to grow and must be met with funded enrollment if our citizens are to compete in an increasingly competitive work environment. We must speak out about the importance of higher education and the need to fund additional enrollment capacity for Washington residents. Without change, our citizens will have no guarantee for higher education within our State.

The reason we are here at BCC is because we chose to be part of an essential task to prepare leaders for tomorrow and contribute to the building of a stronger civilization. We must encourage legislators to invest in the futures of our citizens and our state through support for higher education. I hope that Washington can be convinced to invest once again, as it did when the community college act was signed, in higher education and a better future for our state. I hope you will get involved.

PAUSE

Now, I want to focus the rest of my comments on our accomplishments and focus our work this year as a college community. I am always so impressed by the energy and enthusiasm with which we engage in our work at the college. We always set a high bar—that is the BCC way. This year will be no exception.

You have all been involved over the past couple of years in the development of our strategic plan. We have goals and measurable objectives for the next three years to help us reach our plan. Some of the major projects we will undertake next year include refining enrollment planning and management; expanding teaching and learning resources; fulfilling the student services vision; moving the Center for Liberal Arts into the mainstream of the instructional program; and expanding the reach of the college in our community. Our objectives are ambitious and accomplishing them will help BCC move forward to provide creative learning opportunities for our students. I thank all of you for the effort you put into the strategic plan and hope you will carry forward that commitment to its implementation. You will soon receive an email that spells out the specifics and I ask you to accept assignments when asked that will advance its accomplishment. We look forward to reporting progress to you throughout the year.

We are skilled at discovering creative solutions. Having an efficient and effective way to communicate important information, both among ourselves and to our students, and manage our data has long been an issue in higher education. BCC tackled this problem head on with the creation of a new portal to help us all access on-line resources. This is huge; it will transform how we use information and communicate. The $1.6 million Title III grant we received a year ago helped to kick start this project and our staff have been eager to take this new way to do business a reality. The new portal will consolidate and provide a single point of access to all our web-based services, like the faculty/staff directory, forms library, the school calendar, and so on. More than that, though, it will give instructors a site dedicated to each class— with a real-time view of the enrollees, the ability to post syllabus material, and the capability to communicate with the students in the class— individually or collectively. It will also give us the ability to retrieve data and analyze our operations historically and in real-time, such as finding out how we are doing with class fill rates and program mix and the like.

Microsoft and its solution partners donated the development of the software and portal design at a cost of $250,000 and used BCC as the content experts. This new portal and scorecard technology will be available at no charge to other colleges and universities. BCC, once again, has engaged in a strategic partnership and created a model that other educational institutions will be able to use. It helps us incorporate computing technology into all aspects of college management. Please learn more about this from Lori Tiede who is leading the implementation at BCC. Special thanks to her, our applications developers, i-BCC and Title III staff for creating the BCC portal.

In April of this year, BCC is scheduled to migrate to a new computing system through CIS, the consortium that manages all of the administrative applications of the community and technical colleges. This will move us to a web-based environment, which will make it much easier to retrieve and use college information. Both initiatives are moving BCC closer to our goal to create the internet-assisted college.

And, speaking of operations, we have already begun a great undertaking to look at all of our institutional operations under a very strong light through the accreditation process.
Let me just give you a quick update on where we are with this major effort. The re-accreditation self-examination will continue this year as each of the 12 internal accreditation committees focuses on the analysis of their particular sections. Our immediate goal is to complete the first draft of the self-study.

We know that our final report must demonstrate to the accreditation visiting committee that we have taken a focused look at our institution. We have already been advised by the Commission that they will particularly be looking at assessment and general education, so we must ensure that our efforts in these areas are particularly thorough and incorporate all the work we have done. They also want to see that we not only have described what we do to meet the Association's standards but that we have evaluated how well we are doing. Most reports, they indicated, are long on description but short on analysis and next steps. We need to pay special attention to these areas as we complete the next draft.

From everything I've seen, we have a good start, but with some major work before us. I want to encourage all the accreditation teams to work diligently on your sections. This entire process has involved and will continue to involve most of you, and I greatly appreciate all of your efforts to help the college be successfully reaccredited. My special thanks go to Ron Leatherbarrow, Jerrie Kennedy, Lynne Sage and Valerie Hodge who have been overseeing the process and to all of you who have been working so hard to get us to the point we are at right now. Thank you. This is a major undertaking, an enterprise of enormous proportion and importance to the College and it needs to be one of our top priorities this year.

PAUSE

Now, I want to turn for a minute to update you on some of the things that have happened over the summer. It seems like much more than three months ago that spring quarter ended; so much has occurred.

First, many of you may have noticed that many of our student services functions and the bookstore are not in their normal places. The torrential rains we had the end of August threatened to turn all of our low lying buildings into swimming pools. We thought about issuing snorkels and fins to staff, but thought it was better to repair the damage as quickly as possible, improve the drainage so we won't be in this situation yet again, and get people back into their home spaces as soon as we can. My thanks to you for your understanding as we work through this unforeseen emergency and thanks to the staff who are putting us back together again. This has been an amazing team effort.

On the plus side, you have probably all seen by now the new parking garage, and probably have also driven through our new entrance off 148th Avenue. This main entrance has been closed all summer and reopened just last week. We'll be adding some signage to that entrance, to make it an even more impressive door to our beautiful campus. Both the parking garage and the new entrance are wonderful additions; they provide much needed physical improvements and they will significantly reduce the stress for all of us in arriving at and leaving work each day.

The N and D building projects also have begun. The D Building is getting a thorough and much-needed renovation, and we are adding 4,000 square of open lab space to the N building, for Information Technology and Media programs.

You will find many offices and services have changed locations during the construction. The library, for example, is now in the lobby of the L Building. That move was a major undertaking in itself, and I thank Myra van Vactor and her staff for making it happen so efficiently. The LMC and Campus Ops staff managed the work so well that the move was invisible and painless for the rest of the campus.

We have also had some major personnel changes over the summer. Our Vice President of Administrative Services, Ann Pflug, left BCC in August to spend more time with her family, and we have a search underway for a replacement. In the interim, Campus Ops Director Don Bloom will be filling in for Anne, and Material Resources Manager Laurel LaFever will take over Don's position in Campus Ops. Thanks to both of you for taking on these challenging new assignments.

This past year John Lowdon was on loan to BCC from the Center for Information Services to serve as the interim executive director of the National Workforce Center for Emerging Technologies. During that time he led the development of a new strategic vision for the program. I was delighted to announce last month that, as a result of a hiring process, John has now accepted the permanent position. I look forward to John's leadership as the NWCET moves forward.

PAUSE

And, now I would like to announce three extraordinary projects. People have underestimated the capabilities of community colleges for far too long, but BCC has once again demonstrated that when we see ourselves in a new light, we can accomplish great things for our students and our community. We have the essential energy needed to achieve great accomplishments.
 
BCC has always seen itself as playing a vital role in contributing to regional development. Although we have always been very strong in the various health sciences fields and in the information technology fields, a new role is emerging for us is in the field of bio-informatics, which is the intersection of information technology with biological science.

Very exciting for both the region and the college is that BCC has been named as one of five community colleges to become a biotechnology “Center of Excellence” by the Department of Labor. Each college has been funded to focus on a specific area of biotech training – ours is bio-informatics,– which again is intersection of information technology with biological science, focusing on such areas as DNA studies, life sciences research, and laboratory experiments, for example. The two-year grant funding totals $5 million, of which our share is $775,000. Our plans are to develop bio-informatics skill standards and curriculum for national adoption and to develop and offer courses in bio-informatics at BCC.

This is a great honor for the college, and as we develop our Center of Excellence in bio-tech we will become a key player in helping the region to maintain its position as a hub for biotechnology, in line with the emerging vision of a number of civic and business leaders for the South Lake Union development project and the aspirations of the City of Bellevue to become a bioinformatics hub for the region.

BCC also has launched a new certificate program in Medical Informatics, which integrates information-technology systems and concepts into the healthcare delivery process to manage information in patient care, clinical research and medical education. This new and evolving field encompasses all aspects of patient care data management, including data generation, collection, retention, transmittal and manipulation for patients, healthcare providers, researchers and insurers. Workers are in high demand in this field, and it will be a great career pathway for our students, one which we are proud to provide.

The third area I want to touch on is also in the health sciences area. BCC was one of only 23 institutions in the nation to receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to increase the number of underrepresented students who enter the nursing program, to help those students succeed, and to develop a curriculum that promotes an understanding of patient diversity. You know, we as an institution have been working hard these past couple of years in particular on envisioning all the ways that embracing pluralism can improve our college and our world. The three-year grant totals $486,000 and will assist us in this vision.

I want to offer my sincere thanks to Maurice McKinnon, Jeff Johnson, Paula Boyum, Bruce Riveland, Sharon Kline and the many others who have worked so hard on these efforts. These are real examples of how remaking our vision of ourselves can bring about incredible positive changes for our students and our community. Congratulations BCC!

PAUSE

Well, I know I have asked you to set aside long enough your thinking of all the projects before you, and it is almost time to release you for the work before you. We have recognized and celebrated some of our accomplishments and affirmed our collective purpose as a learning community. We know that a great community college can assist with individual advancement, economic development and community progress. We are sustained through and outstanding staff and a college environment that encourages creativity and innovation.

You, the faculty, staff and administrators of BCC are the talent that makes it possible to accept challenges and move forward inspired and renewed for our work ahead. Without your dedication and commitment to the institution, we would not be where we are today. Together, you provide the collective culture of innovation and creativity that allows BCC to face challenges before us. You are the boulders in the stream of constant change. 

This year, I am calling on you to reach beyond our college walls into the community to request from its members support for higher education, so that we are able to fulfill our mission for the citizens of our state. Generations before us have made that commitment and it is up to us to help our communities to make that commitment again for the good of society.

PAUSE

And dear colleagues, I am grateful to be standing here today, once again, as your President. I look forward to working with you as we continue to enhance academic quality and ensure the success of all who come here. My fervent hope for the year ahead is echoed in the words of one of my colleagues that you will find that it not only “…meets your expectations, but exceeds them; that it both challenges and inspires you. That it introduces you to new ideas and new friends. That it gives you abundant opportunity to explore and learn and think and grow, by yourselves and with others.”

American filmmaker, poet, playwright and teacher James Broughton said, “The only limits, as always, are those of vision.” Let us continue to see ourselves in new and exciting ways as we work together to fulfill our shared vision and values.

And so we begin. Welcome to 2004-05!

*****Special thanks to Bob Adams, Elise Erickson, Debra Ross, and Ron Leatherbarrow for their assistance with this presentation.